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Wednesday, January 5, 2011

I love these headlines from MarketWatch when the market is expected to be down at the open.

Figure 1. MarketWatch

Let's face it, market participants can't even tolerate a pullback of even a half percent without expressing grave and deep concern. I think the headline should read: "Opportunity To Buy". After all, isn't this the pullback that everyone is waiting for? Furthermore, why concern ourselves with pullbacks and down days when it has been determined that the market can only go one way -- up?

How about the headline on gold? (See inside the red oval). Gold takes a "tumble"? A tumble would be something serious like a major correction in a bull market. This was a measly, minor insignificant pullback within a much larger context of a secular trend. A 2% drop within a 30% run up over the past year is not a tumble.

To understand the current market dynamic and the sense of desperation of propping up asset values so that there is no pain, all you need to do is look at yesterday's intraday chart of the Dow Industrials. (See inside the black oval.) At 1 p.m. on no news, the market "magically" reversed course, and of course, it was a straight shot up to produce another winning day.

Lastly, let me make a comment in general. I recently played golf in a celebrity - pro - am charity event. I was an amateur! The talk turned to the markets. Everyone was happy that the markets were up, and most did not care how they got there. Most of these high net worth individuals had not heard of POMO or even were aware that the Fed was targeting asset prices. For many, with 401k's or IRA's, the market was their only source of return or way to save for retirement. Housing prices were depressed; business was ok - more surviving than thriving; the stock market was up and so were their portfolios. And that is all that mattered.

Update: I just checked the market mid - morning and note that it was up thus validating my notion that the headline should have read: "Opportunity to Buy". Another unrelenting straight up shot to the old highs. Darn, missed another one.

2 comments:

Yes, you're right, this society/economy is scared to death of any bit of market pullback because we've put all our eggs in that basket.

Our over-leveraged, debt-ridden economy, with a financial sector that has a strangle hold on it (and it's vampire fangs sunk in it's neck), is desperately trying to stay ahead of the tidal wave building behind it. Enough metaphorical imagery for ya? LOL

It's just unbelievable that we're watching yet another disaster in the making.

As for gold and silver, people forget so quickly just how volatile that market can be. The run up from the July bottom was so uncharacteristically un-volatile that it has lulled people into thinking it's some kind of new norm.